Cloudy and High of 50

I think I am coming to an important point in my professional life. I’m 35 years old and getting almost a half decade beyond my graduate school days. In the years since I received my PhD, I’ve strayed away from research science and have ventured into the fields of natural sounds recording and outreach. I’ve had some great successes doing this work and have a complete and utter fascination and passion for natural sounds, their preservation, and their use as a conservation tool. I just need to figure out the best way to harness this and make a career out of it.

Funding for our Sound and Light Ecology Team was recently rejected by the Department of the Interior, which means my days in my current position are likely numbered. Though I likely have funding for another year, a year isn’t that long to find a new job, especially one that fits my skill set. It’s even more imperative that I figure out a way to develop my big career break soon. I have ideas…

Finally, I feel I’m caught in between peer groups. All too often I find myself unfulfilled with conversation and interactions with peers and I think it’s because I need to recognize who my peers actually are and not who I’m clinging to. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy my friend group because I do. I think I just need to expand it to be more balanced and to include people on a similar trajectory and place in life as I currently find myself. This is critical to continue my mental and personal development.

To tackle this transition I think I need to allow myself dedicated time for thought and idea processing. I need to set aside a portion of my day just to think and write down thoughts and ideas that come to mind. Maybe I’ll mostly just think. Maybe I’ll write stream of concious style à la Faulkner. Either way, the point is to exercise my mind in a way that teaches me mental discipline, triggers a more creative me, explores the bounds of my interests, the depths of what I know and don’t know, eventually allowing me to understand myself in order to better bring into focus what I’m working towards over the next several years.

So that being said, I will use this blog as a way to hold myself accountable. I’ll try to update the blog near daily and in doing so, the theme/trend of what this blog currently is will likely change. This could be weird or good, who knows. I’ll likely not post my most creative ideas for the sake of their protection, but I will allow myself room for both professional and personal development here. I just need to write without distraction and find some real mental discipline.